Citcon and Splitit have partnered to enable Citcon’s merchants to offer Splitit’s one-click credit card-linked installments both online and in-store. The companies’ new partnership adds Splitit’s flexible payment offering to Citcon’s global payment platform that is used by retail, luxury and hospitality brands. “Partnering with Splitit allows us to offer flexible omnichannel installments, bringing over [190 million] U.S. cardholders with available credit, driving new sales at high average-ticket merchants,” Citcon Co-founder and President Wei Jiang said. Splitit’s platform eliminates the need for applications or credit checks. Instead, it leverages the credit consumers already have, allowing them to break purchases into manageable monthly installments. This seamless, friction-free approach can improve conversion and customer satisfaction at checkout. Citcon can deliver this offering to merchants through its payment platform that is fully integrated with more than 50 leading point of sale systems, gateways and middleware providers, and enables merchants using these platforms to easily activate new payment methods.
Cantor Fitzgerald’s risk management expertise and experience in managing Treasury collateral for stablecoin issuer Tether lends credibility to its newly launched bitcoin lending business
Investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald has successfully executed its first Bitcoin financing transactions, marking a significant entry by a traditional finance institution into the crypto lending market. The company announced that its Bitcoin Financing Business is now fully operational, with an initial capacity of $2 billion that is expected to expand over time. The launch represents one of the few major traditional finance institutions to enter the crypto lending space directly. Cantor partnered with digital asset custodians Anchorage Digital and Copper.co to safeguard client assets, addressing security concerns that have plagued the sector. Maple Finance, an on-chain asset manager, was among the inaugural borrowers under the program. The crypto lending sector has experienced significant turbulence, with numerous high-profile failures casting doubt on the industry’s stability. However, Cantor’s entry differs from previous crypto lending ventures in several key ways. Unlike the failed firms which were all startups, Cantor Fitzgerald is far more established in terms of managing risk and is one of just 25 primary dealers in the US Treasury markets. The firm’s experience managing Treasury collateral for stablecoin issuer Tether, its largest crypto client, provides additional institutional credibility to its Bitcoin financing operations.
Donatos Pizza to open first fully autonomous restaurant in airport that will operate 24/7 and leverage robotics and data science tech to streamline the customer experience from placing orders to receiving their pizza
Donatos Pizza and its sister company, smart kitchen technology developer Agape Automation, are partnering with robotic food tech provider Appetronix to open the pizza chain’s first robot-operated restaurant in its headquarters city. The new fully automated Donatos Pizza restaurant will debut before security in front of Concourse B at the John Glenn Columbus International Airport in June 2025 and will be operated by franchisee HMS Host. The autonomous restaurant will operate 24/7, leveraging robotics and data science technologies to streamline the customer experience from placing orders to receiving their pizza while they watch it being freshly prepared in real time. The new automated restaurant is part of a larger four-point strategy Donatos Pizza launched in March 2025, which includes innovating for the future, staying relevant, driving sustainable growth and leading with vision. Other high-tech efforts Donatos is undertaking include implementing a new voice AI-based ordering system from Revmo AI that will automate its phone orders. Rollout to all 174 Donatos restaurants across multiple states is expected to be completed by May 2025. The company anticipates that Revmo’s AI-based voice ordering technology will enhance the customer experience and increase order conversions, ultimately driving revenue across its locations nationwide. According to Donatos, this technology has the potential to transform food service in airports, hospitals, college campuses, industrial environments, and other location where a traditional kitchen may not be feasible.
Pizza Hut launches app for its summer reading program to motivate young readers to sharpen literacy skills and earn a free Pizza in rewards
Pizza Hut has launched an app for its longstanding Book It! program, first launched in 1984, designed to motivate young readers to achieve literacy goals by rewarding their accomplishments with a free, one-topping Personal Pan Pizza from participating Pizza Hut locations. The Book It! app is part of Pizza Hut’s revitalized summer reading program named, “Book It! Summer of Stories,” which officially launches June 1. The initiative encourages parents to stay engaged with their child’s reading journey and sharpen their literacy skills throughout the summer months when learning tends to decline. Parents can set monthly reading goals specifically designed to support children from pre-K through 6th grade and cater toward their child’s abilities while monitoring their progress. Young readers can earn one free Personal Pan Pizza each month in June, July and August by reaching the reading goals parents set for each month. “With the launch of the Book It! app, we’re making it even easier for parents to connect with their kids, set meaningful reading goals and inspire plenty of fun pizza-filled memories with their families. This new platform will help keep reading goals top of mind this summer — and turn progress into pizza.”
Sam’s Club to deliver pizzas for online orders with an option to combine them with other items that are eligible for <3 hours express delivery
Warehouse club retailer Sam’s Club, a division of Walmart, is now delivering hot Member’s Mark baked pizzas for online orders at most stores across the U.S. and will have the offering available from all stores by the end of May 2025. The pizzas cost $8.98 and come in pepperoni, cheese and four-meat flavors. Online pizza orders can be combined with other items and are eligible for express delivery, arriving less than three hours after an order is placed. Pizzas are also still available for in-store or curbside orders. According to Sam’s Club, the launch of pizza delivery is the latest step in a bigger shift to providing shoppers digital ease in ways that save time, add value and deepen customer connections, such as its new digital-first store format. “When we talk about innovation, it’s not just about what’s new — it’s about what makes life easier for our members,” said Kurt Hess, group director, operations and implementation at Sam’s Club. “Pizza delivery is a perfect example.”
Tesco’s VAR-style tech at self-checkout tills uses camera that records customers’ actions and detects when items may not have been properly scanned to combat shoplifting
Tesco has introduced VAR-style replay technology at its self-checkout tills to combat shoplifting. The technology uses artificial intelligence to detect when items may not have been properly scanned. If a shopper fails to scan the items correctly, they are warned to remove from the bagging area and try again. Retail experts believe this visual evidence makes shoplifters more likely to pay for items rather than risk being caught. The technology could lead to the removal of security measures from everyday products. Shoplifting has reached record levels in the UK, costing retailers £2bn annually, and staff facing increasing violence and abuse.
Crypto-native firm FalconX closes its first Bitcoin-backed financing facility from investment bank Cantor, indicating rising demand for trusted, institutional-grade credit infrastructure for digital assets
FalconX has closed its first Bitcoin-backed financing facility from Cantor, a premier global investment bank. This transaction represents the first step in a broader credit framework that FalconX intends to scale beyond $100 million with Cantor. The transaction marks a pivotal milestone in institutional digital asset adoption, underscoring the growing convergence of traditional finance and crypto infrastructure. Cantor’s Bitcoin Financing Business, which expects to make available up to $2 billion of financing in its initial phase, provides leverage to institutional investors who hold Bitcoin, bringing scale, structure, and sophistication to the digital asset industry. “Over the past two years, we’ve seen institutional demand for credit grow dramatically, driven by the need for capital-efficient trading, hedging, and liquidity strategies,” said Josh Barkhordar, Head of U.S. Sales at FalconX. “Digital assets have lacked the institutional-grade credit infrastructure that’s essential to well-functioning capital markets. This collaboration between Cantor and a crypto-native firm represents a significant step toward building that framework, enabling digital assets to function with the same depth and reliability as traditional markets.” As institutions increasingly demand high-trust counterparties to access digital asset markets, FalconX looks to expand its role in bridging traditional and digital finance through secure, scalable credit infrastructure.
Ulta Beauty’s use of centralized first-party data to build unified customer profiles based on preferences and transactions across different channels and AI-driven personalized recommendations in real-time drives a 95% repurchase rate
Ulta Beauty centralized scattered customer data to build unified profiles, by looking at preferences and transactions across different channels. Ulta deployed advanced AI and ML models to understand the customer, predict what they’re likely to do next and send them personalized recommendations. The messages can change in near real time based on new customer actions. Ulta also measures the results. This new capability helps Ulta build stronger relationships and drive growth. The retailer said that nearly all its customers come back. This personalization has led to 95% of customers repurchasing products at Ulta, according to CMO Kelly Mahoney. But there’s another benefit to this approach, too. Using AI for print campaigns — those aimed at magazines, for example — has reduced costs without hurting effectiveness, the retailer claimed. Ulta’s loyalty program, Ulta Beauty Rewards, is central to its data-driven personalization. Each interaction — whether it’s a product review, app click or in-store visit — feeds the retailer’s marketing engine.
D2C jewelry brand Wanderlust + Co sets up first US brick and mortar store to offer city-specific and personalization services driven by success of high-converting pop-ups together with curated community meets
Viral female-founded jewelry brand Wanderlust + Co is expanding Stateside. The playful and accessibly priced label has chosen New York City and Philadelphia for its first U.S. brick and mortar locations—on Bleecker Street and the King of Prussia Mall respectively. While Malayia based Wanderlust + Co has its roots as a digital-first brand, it has already established five locations across Asia in Malaysia and Singapore and is stocked with some 400 retailers worldwide. The U.S. region, however, accounts for 40% of global website traffic and conversions together with a 20-25% repeat purchase rate among U.S. shoppers. According to CEO and founder Jenn Low, these permanent spaces were also a response to insights gathered from a series of high-performing U.S. pop-ups together with intimate media dinners and one-on-one meetings. They demonstrated significantly increased conversion when people could physically engage with the product. The offering of these stores tap into broader spectrum market trends such as city specific products and personalisation services which are key when it comes to drawing customers in-store and and building a local community. While appealing in particular to a Gen-Z consumer, personalisation and storytelling amplify the emotional resonance of jewelry. The New York and Philadelphia stores both offer on-site piercing alongside personalisation services such as welding, engraving and a jewelry adjacent ‘patch bar’ where customers can personalise canvas key-chains, choosing from a series of iron-on designs—”allowing customers to bring their stories to life, making each piece uniquely theirs.”
FICO partners with AWS to accelerate the adoption of AI-driven, automated decision workflows in its platform and simplify procurement for customers through its availability on AWS Marketplace
FICO has signed a new strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to bring more organizations worldwide the power of AI-driven, automated decision workflows with FICO Platform, which runs on AWS, and FICO will broaden its participation in AWS partner programs to accelerate client adoption of FICO Platform. FICO solutions will also be available through AWS Marketplace Private Offers. The first of these solutions, FICO Decision Modeler, is now available in AWS Marketplace. FICO Decision Modeler is the advanced decision management system that powers greater flexibility, ease of use and decision accuracy, and is at the core of FICO Platform. Many financial institutions are already using FICO Platform on AWS to drive successful business initiatives, such as Westpac NZ, one of New Zealand’s largest retail banks. “With FICO Platform, which supports transformation at scale on AWS, we’ve been able to shift from focusing on individual decisions we make on a customer’s account, to thinking strategically about how we manage customers across all of their accounts and throughout their lifetime with the bank,” said Regan Goble, Risk Analytics senior manager at Westpac NZ. “FICO’s decision management solutions provide customers with powerful tools for making data-driven financial decisions,” said Scott Mullins, managing director, Worldwide Financial Services at AWS. “Making these solutions available in AWS Marketplace simplifies procurement for our customers while providing the security, scalability, and performance benefits of AWS.